PowerPoint Morph: How Our Client Won a Startup Pitching Event (Case Study)

Do you use animations in your PowerPoint presentations? Maybe to move an object from one place to another, using Motion Paths? Or recoloring text by adding one of the Emphasis Effects? Now imagine that you can do that and much more at once by just clicking a single button. Yes, there is such a magical button in PowerPoint and it is called Morph! What is Morph then?

Morph is a transition. It recognizes an object which is copied from one slide to the next and when that object changes (in position, rotation, size, color), Morph automatically makes these changes apply smoothly. As it is a transition between two slides and not an animation, it plays everything at once. But still, the possibilities that it offers, are endless!

Important note: Morph is supported in Office 365 and PowerPoint 2019 and as a transition, it is located in the Transition menu inside of the ribbon.

Perhaps many of you has already heard of Morph. But let’s see closer what can we do with it and where is its hidden magic!

When using Morph, make sure that you copy the same object from the first slide and then edit it on the next slide. After that you simply choose a Morph transition to the second slide. Go to slideshow mode and enjoy!

Now that you know the main principles of how Morph works, you can create magic! It looks stunning and yet, it’s so simple!

To give you a real example, here is part of a project that we did recently for one of our clients that ended up winning a startup competition in front of executive from Lufthansa(we did not just the design but the story of this talk).

It was a very successful 5 mins pitch for a tool that is dedicated to airport management. We wanted to create a feeling of flying in the sky representing the light and smooth processes which the tool can provide. But when talking about the current problems in the field, the direction of the flight goes down, underlining their catastrophic effect.

The secret that we used is hidden in the space outside the slide. The clouds are hiding there until the next slide where they appear, moved by Morph. This creates the illusion of moving in certain direction.

Look carefully and you will discover the elements from the previous and the next slide here, too.

The logos from the previous slide has now gone above this one. Morph recognizes them and makes their movement smooth. On the other hand, we have the text 2. from the next slide below. On the next slide Morph will lift up this text for us. It works the same with the clouds.

You can pay attention to the airplane. In order to “fly” ahead, we put it on the right side of the next slide. This is also one thing that you have to consider. And this is how you control the speed. As we wanted some of the clouds to appear sooner than others, we put them closer to the slide. Those which are further will “arrive” on the slide later as they need to pass longer distance.

But beware, if there are two copies of the same object, Morph can mistake and move the one you don’t want to.

When you use shapes, you can make them different very easy. To prevent this, in our case we used several different images of clouds.

If you use several same shapes on the slides, you can make them unique by typing in some text (numbers, for example). Then make the text with the same color as the shape to make it invisible.

Morph is indeed something fascinating. A wonderful instrument to make emphasis on your highlight points and move between the slides in a magical way. It is as easy as a child’s game! Go and explore it! So who said that stunning presentations cannot be created easily and with the help of PowerPoint?

Who's Boris:

Boris is the Founder of Presentation Agency 356labs and a PowerPoint MVP. He is also a top-rated international speaker who has delivered presentations in more than 25 countries and has been rated as the top speaker numerous times. Boris has years of experience as a trainer, mentor and consultant and works with companies like Deutsche Telekom, KPMG, Renault, Societe Generale, Roche, Publicis Group, Experian, Bosch, VMWARE, adidas and many, many more to help them craft and deliver truly effective presentations. His agency is also the only presentation agency in the world speaking at Microsoft Ignite - the biggest yearly event of Microsoft, attended by more than 25 000 people. Boris is also a Pluralsight Author and loves sharing his knowledge at events, podcasts, webcasts or on his personal blog.

Originally published at 356labs.com on November 2, 2018.